The western Avernus; . overflowing, and apassing neighbour told us the Illinois River was not fordable. At noon H told me I could stay till it cleared up if I liked, on condition of working, and sofor nearly a week I did all the stable work and oddjobs as usual. During this last seven days I walkedover to Waldo to see if I could get some letters Ithought would be lying there for me from Hughes,to whom I had written on my first arrival on this had to cross the river on a big flume or aqueductbuilt to carry water across the river to a ditch for ahydraulic mine. The sight beneath me was
The western Avernus; . overflowing, and apassing neighbour told us the Illinois River was not fordable. At noon H told me I could stay till it cleared up if I liked, on condition of working, and sofor nearly a week I did all the stable work and oddjobs as usual. During this last seven days I walkedover to Waldo to see if I could get some letters Ithought would be lying there for me from Hughes,to whom I had written on my first arrival on this had to cross the river on a big flume or aqueductbuilt to carry water across the river to a ditch for ahydraulic mine. The sight beneath me was river was fairly roaring in its rocky channel, redand turbid, running ten or twelve miles an hour, beateninto foam on the huge rocks in its midst and hurlingthe spray into the air, while the flume on which I stoodtrembled with the burden of water it carried and theshock of the stream below. I found letters at Waldofrom my friend at Kamloops, and next day I leftMr. H and set out over the Coast Range. 234. ^ CHAPTER XIX ACROSS THE COAST RANGE I HAD made preparations for a three or four days walk,packing up some bread, bacon, and a little tea, with asmall bag of parched maize or Indian corn, while I putsome of it, stripped from the cob, but unparched, in mypockets. I had no exact knowledge of the distanceto Crescent City in California, from which steamers ranto San Francisco, but knew it was between seventyand ninety miles or thereabouts, and, of course, as theroad was very lonely, it was necessary to be providedwith food. And then my finances would not havepermitted me to pay for my meals, even if I had beenable to buy them, inasmuch as the fare from Crescentto San Francisco was, I had been told, about 7 dols. The weeks rain and storm that had kept me fromtravelling had had a terrible effect on the roads. Atstated intervals during the summer it was usual to runa stage from Waldo to Crescent, but this was nowabandoned for the present for great part of the way,owing
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